Reduce Ongoing Costs with Open-source Software

The challenging economic climate has caused many organisations’ IT budgets to shrink, making it harder for them to adopt new technologies that increase efficiency and output. Proprietary software can eat into an organisation’s ICT budget – they’re expensive to buy and the annual licensing fees are an ongoing expense. Another challenge that propriety software poses is the fact that integrating these tools can lead to compatibility issues – not to mention the costs associated with application integration.

In this environment, open-source software offers several significant benefits to companies who are faced with the challenges posed by propriety applications:

Integrate into multiparty environments: As no proprietary code is required to manipulate and modify the software, open-source applications can be easily integrated into multiple-party environments.

Eliminate the costs of licensing fees: Open-source software has no license fees so you can spend your budget on getting top level support.

Get expert advice for free: The huge international community of open-source users and developers are more than happy to share advice and their experiences, allowing businesses to take advantage of the best practice information the open-source community supplies.

Flexible and customisable: Open-source allows anyone to take the code and manipulate it to deliver new functionality, better integration and other features.

Save money: The licenses, documentation and support costs are very low, with no obligation to subscribe to annual licensing, which means that time to ROI is far shorter.

International community of developers: This community aspect enables individuals or companies using open-source software to benefit from the advice and support of a large global network of users and developers.

Why aren’t more companies using open-source software?

The business world has been slow to adopt open-source software and it only recently began to gain traction and momentum for a number of reasons. One of the major concerns businesses have with open-source tools is the lack of reliability. Since open-source software allows anyone to edit and modify the code, there is the perception that open-source software is not as effective as its propriety counterparts. Other concerns include available support and ongoing development.

These perceptions, however, have been proven false as the number of developers who are available to service and support open-source software has grown exponentially and the fact that open-source tools are just as reliable as licensed applications and these tools are becoming far more widely understood.

Demand for open-source applications continues to grow

The demand for open-source applications is increasing daily in the software market, which is driving developers to create more of these tools. There has been a dramatic increase in investment in open-source as more and more businesses are considering a migration, and year on year there is an increase in the number of businesses enquiring about open-source and migrations to this type of software.

Implement open-source solutions by partnering with an experienced company

When it comes to implementing open-source solutions, businesses can benefit from partnering with an experienced and skilled outsource company that can deliver implementations and support along with competitive prices and better quality software tools.

Outsourcers have a significant role to play in making open-source the software platform of choice. Outsourcing and consulting companies should introduce open-source software to clients and have a product offering that involves these types of solutions, highlighting the benefits when these products are proposed to clients. Outsourced providers should also offer training to clients on software tools and open-source operating system administration.

It is up to open-source developers to address existing perceptions and deliver quality service to rival the licensed giants. Only then will the open-source platform become the preferred choice for businesses looking to implement great software.